Hot & steamy, in Winnipeg

The hottest, steamiest, most exotic place in Canada? It's in Winnipeg. Really. Hidden away on the top floor of the historic old Fort Garry Hotel is an unexpected bit of Turkey -- an exotic oasis known as a hamam, or Turkish steam bath. The million-dollar installation features dimly lit rooms lined with tiny blue-and-white mosaic tiles, burnished metal bowls and marble urns and arches.

The hamam -- billed as being developed in Istanbul and engineered in Germany -- is the showpiece of a bigger spa called Ten (it takes up the whole 10th floor of the hotel), which is pretty amazing in itself.

Open less than two years, this spa first caught my attention when Michele Sponagle, a Toronto-based travel writer, made the case that the Hamam at Ten might be the best spa in the country. The fact that she made this argument while at the Banff Springs -- noted internationally for its stunning Willow Stream spa -- made me sit up and take notice.

I had to check out Ten.

The Fort Garry Hotel is just a short stroll from Winnipeg's train station. Built by the Grand Trunk Railway in 1911, its Montreal architects were the same ones who designed the Château Laurier, and you can spot some similarities.

In more recent years, though, the Fort Garry suffered several decades of decline until, in 1993, it was rescued by a pair of Winnipeg entrepreneurs who restored it to the kind of faded grandeur you associate with the railway hotels across Canada: marble steps, lots of brass, ballrooms and immense old light fixtures.

None of which prepares you for its 10th floor.

Step off the elevator, go through the spa door, and you're in a modern, all-white world that looks like the über-trendy Bliss spas in New York City and Chicago. But why are they giving out tea towels?

They issued me a fluffy robe, slippers ... and one of the tea towels. More properly called a pesternal, these stretchy pieces of woven plaid cotton are worn in Turkish spas, around men's waists and somewhat higher on women. Considering that the spa is co-ed, and that you spend a lot of time lying on your back, it's a rather racy concept. But you're so woozily relaxed in the sloshy wet, 40-degree room, I doubt anyone would have the energy to be looking up anyone else's pesternal.

With the Hamam 101 package, you're first led into in a small tiled room where you take a seat on a hot, tiled bench and meet your therapist. Carine was fully clothed when I met her, but soon also stripped down to just a pesternal on her bottom and an athletic top on top.

While she got changed, I was encouraged to relax, sip mint tea and nibble on handmade jelly squares made with rosewater.

Next, Carine led me into the large chamber, big enough to accommodate about a dozen clients, but mercifully deserted on the weekday when I visited.

First stop is the salt station: you sit on a heated semi-circular bench and rub an aromatic salt mixture all over your body. The room is dimly lit and the salt mixture is served to you in a battered-looking bronze bowl.

After about 20 minutes, once I was all pink, sweaty and salty, Carine led me to a large tiled platform. While I lay prone, she sloshed water from a marble urn all over the platform and me, washing off the salt and sending up clouds of steam.

Ida Albo, one of the owners of the hotel and spa, says this is one of the features that sets her hamam apart from others in North America (all the rage, hamams have opened recently in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Miami and Los Angeles).

"But they're not Turkish in the sense that ours is," says Albo, who, with her husband, discovered her first hamam at a spa in Munich. The couple then went to Turkey to learn more.

"Most of the so-called hamams in North America are really just steam rooms, but we built ours like a true, traditional co-ed hamam. The floors, walls and benchs are all heated, and then we use a lot of water in our treatments. That's what creates the steam -- not steam jets."

As I lay on my back in a puddle of steaming water (and wondering just how much that pesternal was covering anyway), Carine massaged my feet and head. It felt heavenly -- and really, really hot.

I was left to relax and encouraged to pour water over of myself or even leave the room for a few minutes if the heat became too intense. I did once, when I felt just slightly nauseous. (And I'm someone who actually enjoys the steamiest days of Ottawa's summer. Having lunch right before the treatment might have been a mistake.)

After some more time on the slab, Carine led me through a curtained arch in the marble wall to a tiled, heated massage table. Could this treatment get any more indulgent? Well, yes, it turns out.

Carine used rough cloth mitts to rub down my entire body (no dead skin skills could possibly survive both the salt and the mitts), then lathered me up in warm, soft bubbles made from an olive oil soap. At one point, lying on my stomach, I felt a soft sensation whisper along my back, so mysterious I actually had to raise my lazy head and turn to see what was going on. Carine had inflated a narrow cloth case into a tube, and was using it to move the soft bubbles all over my body.

"This is something they do in Turkey?" I asked.

"Yes," said Carine, "but in Turkey they use a bag made from a sheep's skin."

Hamam 101 winds up with the therapist washing your hair, wrapping your head in another cloth, followed by rest time in an all-white room with couches and blankets, where you're given a wine glass of salted yogurt, said to help get your electrolytes back in balance after all that sweating.

The $145 seemed like a small price to pay for hours of treatments and relaxation, and new glowing skin to take home -- too bad about the plane fare to Winnipeg. But it's still a bargain compared to a trip to Turkey.

Laura Robin is the Citizen's travel editor.

IF YOU GO...

Where: The Fort Garry Hotel, Winnipeg

Cost: From $50 for a manicure to $175 for the Hamam Fully Loaded package

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